Ed Miliband’s pledges are set in stone

Ed Miliband’s ‘pledge of stone’ in Hastings. Image: screengrab from ITV news. Click through for report.

Ed Miliband has unveiled an eight foot high stone monument chiselled with his key manifesto promises.

He says he will not run for a second term if he fails to meet a pledge to cut tuition fees.

The Labour leader vowed he would install the limestone tablet in the back garden of 10 Downing Street if he succeeds in Thursday’s general election.

The tablet of stone was launched in Hastings.

It has also been parodied in social media- largely run by Labour’s opponents.

As he unveiled his slab, Mr Miliband said:

These six pledges are now carved in stone. They are carved in stone because they won’t be abandoned after the general election.

I want the British people to remember these pledges to remind us of these pledges, to insist on these pledges, because I want the British people to be in no doubt, we will deliver them.

We will restore faith in politics by delivering what we promised at this general election.

Mr Miliband says that he expects to be held to account on all six of the pledges engraved on the stone.

He said that if he became Prime Minister and failed to cut tuition fees, he would not stand for the office again, ‘Because there should be consequences when people’s trust is let down.’

The pledges include higher living standards for working families, an NHS with the time to care, controls on immigration and ‘a country where the next generation can do better than the last’.

Opposition leaders were quick to respond to the announcement with criticism, comparing it to a headstone.

David Cameron mocked the ‘tombstone’ at an event in Nuneaton, saying ‘I think if you have got a problem with judgment, I don’t think that’s going to help.’

Nick Clegg told activists in Bermondsey that there was nothing ‘attractive about the instability of a hapless minority Labour administration, regardless of these new great gravestones they are apparently going to erect.’